


too loud for words

by goldearring (leoandsnake)



Series: 28/29 [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Anal Sex, Being Walked In On, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, Interrupted Sex, Kissing, M/M, Makeouts, Oblivious Harry, POV switch, Present Tense, Secret Lovers, Secret Relationship, Third Party POV, hiatus sadness, hiatus talk, matching tattoos, niall pov, ot4 moments, outsider pov, romantic sex, twist on 5 things fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:04:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/goldearring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Niall hesitates. “Do you love him?” he finally says.</i><br/><i>Liam looks confused. “What do you mean? I love all of you.”</i><br/><i>“You know what I mean,” Niall says, in a careful tone of voice he rarely uses.</i><br/><i>“Oh,” Liam says. He flushes again, and drops their eye contact.</i><br/><i>Niall waits.</i><br/><i>“I don't know,” Liam says. “Suppose I must, right? He just feels like home. Every part of him... feels like coming home.”</i><br/>In which Niall keeps suspecting his bandmates are involved, and turns out to be very right in doing so.  Loosely a 5 + 1 fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	too loud for words

**Author's Note:**

> This is a weirdly structured fic, I haven't done this before? It's like a 5 + 1 inside of a larger fic, also pov swapping. But! I like it, so

Niall isn’t sure, but he thinks there might be something going on between Liam and Louis.

There’s no single definitive event that makes him think this, or else he would be more confident in his suspicions. It’s a series of little moments, strung along together like fairy lights.

They’re lonelier without Zayn, the four of them. One less to pile up on a couch with, one less to take up room and make noise and distract them; so Niall starts to notice things he never has before, and he’s more sharply attuned to anything that began after Zayn left.

Liam and Louis are the most gutted over it. They all expected that. The afternoon the news was broken to them, Niall found himself standing in a kitchenette sometime later with tears dried on his cheeks, stirring a mug of tea and thinking in a detached way, _Louis and Liam’ll be closest to each other now_.

He and Harry are close, but -

None of the rest of them get close the way Louis does. He wriggles his way under your skin with his laser-focused attention and his raucous laughter and the protection he offers - the feeling that if Lou is on your side, nobody on Earth could possibly fuck with you.

Niall notices it on Liam's end first. The darting and vulnerable looks he gives, the way he seems to hesitate before he touches Louis around the face or waist when they’re on stage. Liam has never been very good at hiding his feelings.

Steadily, they become less and less careful when they’re in private. (Within the confines of the four of them, of One Direction, counts as _in private_ ). Steadily, the wisps of Niall’s suspicions begin to take solid form.

 

1.

Niall and Liam are at the back of a bus playing FIFA when Louis comes in. Niall is absorbed in the game, but from behind him and to the left, he sees Louis slip over to Liam and start wrestling him for his controller. Liam protests weakly. He whispers something, and Louis murmurs back.

Niall finally pauses the game to be a good sport and turns to them. They’re oblivious to him entirely. They’re whispering, inches from each other’s faces. Louis is half on the arm of the couch and half in Liam’s lap. One hand is fisted in Liam's shirt while the other runs up and down Liam's thigh.

Niall whistles. They look up. Louis seems a little chagrined, and stands.

“I play winner, lads,” he says.

Niall turns back to the game. “Right,” he says, jocular as ever as the back of his brain buzzes with confusion. “So me, then.”

“I can still come back!” Liam says quickly. “I’m making my comeback. Watch me.”

 

2. 

It’s late days in the tour; in fact, they’re almost done. They come offstage after a long night. Niall is tired, sad and irritable. He took a water bottle to the hipbone, and it still smarts.

Liam walks into Louis’ dressing room, which isn’t unusual, but closes it behind him, which is. Niall stops in his tracks as a handler rushes up to him to take his guitar and the damp button-down he’s in. He smiles wanly at her.

“Stop,” Niall hears Louis say, but he’s laughing as he says it. Niall glances at the door.

When Louis speaks again it’s half a whisper. “I need - and what’ve you done there?”

“It’s good, mate, it’s all good,” Liam says softly.

Harry appears at Niall’s side. Niall starts.

“What are they on about?” Harry murmurs, inclining his head at the closed door.

The handler disappears with Niall’s belongings in tow. “Not sure,” he says.

Harry shakes his head, smiling fondly as he undoes his own shirt. He gives Niall a squeeze, says “good show” and moves on. Niall props his good foot up on an amp to tie his laces.

He hears more mumblings from behind the door. The sound of it is intimate, tender, like hearing a married couple puttering around together before bed. Niall can’t shake the feeling he shouldn’t be hearing it.

He follows Harry.

 

 3.

When they meet for the first time after Christmas, the rags have broken the news that Louis got a tramp stamp.

The artist, when reached for comment, refuses to call it that. He refers to it as a “tasteful lower back tattoo for a young man who is running out of room.”

“Beckham’s got one,” Louis ends up shouting at an aggressive paparazzi a few days later.

It reads _too loud for words._ Richard Lawson puts out an article titled _Larry Stylinson: Too Loud For Words_ , to the chagrin of Harry. “I don’t even know what it _means_ ,” he says to Niall over tea. “He’s never mentioned it to me, that's for sure. Pass the sugar?”

The rags say Liam was at the parlor with him, but don’t elaborate. The only photo is a blurry one of the tat itself.

Niall happens to look at Liam’s wrist when he sits next to him at the conference table, and feels a blinding flash of insight. _We are the quiet ones._

Niall squints, and then he looks away. He has learned, maybe too late, that nothing is what it seems to be.

 

 4.

He comes into Louis’s hotel room to play a riff for him. “Think you could write for this?” he says.

Louis, lying down on the bed, groans and covers his face with his hands.

“Hypothetically!” Niall protests. They’re in London for a press engagement, and he’s pretty stoned.

“Play it again,” Louis instructs.

He does. Louis sits up and taps out a beat on the bedside table.

“Yeah, yeah, that could work,” Louis says. “But get your own writer.”

“I’m gonna get Greg to write for me during the break,” Niall says. “The dream team.”

Louis snorts.

Niall maneuvers to sit next to him and looks down so he doesn’t smash his guitar off the bedframe. He squints at the floor.

A pair of Liam’s boxer briefs are lying amongst Louis’s clothes.

“Lad?” Louis says.

Niall looks up quickly. “Sorry,” he says. “Took too big a hit earlier.”

“You are the lightweight to end them all,” Louis says fondly, and he turns his attention to his phone. Niall takes a seat next to him.

 

5.

The three of them are out at a club. Louis and Liam disappear for a smoke. When they come back, Louis’s hair is mussed and he’s wobbly on his legs. Liam looks sheepish. They’re both grinning.

“What did you two leave for?” Niall says.

“Smoked a j,” Louis says smoothly.

They fuss over him, bringing him drinks and telling him who he should pull. Louis throws an arm around him and whispers wicked barbs about the other musicians in the club. Niall laughs.

He thinks he sees Liam's hand on Louis's leg, but then again, he's very drunk.

 

/

 

And then, one night, he walks in on them.

They're all at Louis' place, waiting on Harry so they can go out to dinner. Niall said he was going down for a nap but he ended up just lying there, spread-eagle, staring at the ceiling and thinking too hard about everything. The break, his own life - everything.

So he gets up and starts looking for the bathroom. He wants a shower and maybe a wank before they head out.

Niall opens a door. It's not the bathroom.

It's Liam's bedroom.

For a crazy second, he thinks they're wrestling, and then the situation hits him sonically and he realizes what's going on.

"Oi!" he screams, half-panicked, half-indignant, like he's walked in on his parents. He forcefully slams the door, turning and running his hand through his hair.

There's immediate chaos in the room. Liam says fuck, theatrically and many times. Niall thinks he hears Louis fumbling around for his clothes.

‘Really gone and done it now, haven't we?’ Liam says, muffled.

“Shut _up_!” Louis snaps, and he sounds truly annoyed. He bursts out of the door into Niall, with his shirt barely on and his pants half off his ass. His hair is sticking up.

“Lou, it's okay,” Niall says, wanting this moment to end before it’s barely even begun. “You don't have to - please, let's just forget it, hey?”

Louis ignores him. He pulls a pack of Marlboros out of his askew back pocket. “Let's have a smoke,” he says.

Niall doesn't argue. With his heart pounding away in his chest, he follows Louis out to the balcony.

They stand there for a minute or so, lighting up and taking a few drags. Niall doesn't like cigarettes, but he thinks he can give himself a pass this time.

“Sorry,” he says. He's not sure why he says it.

Louis snorts. “Sorry?” he says, voice high and thin. “We're the ones who're sorry.”

 _We_...

“I told Liam to lock the door,” Louis continues, inhaling deeply. His free hand fiddles and fiddles without landing on anything. It occurs to Niall how rattled he must be.

“It's all right,” Niall says. He hesitates a moment before dropping the bomb. “I think I - I sorta knew.”

Louis squints as he blows out some smoke. He still holds his cigs like they're spliffs. “No…” he says, disbelieving. “How?”

Niall shrugs and looks out over London. He wonders where Harry is, and hopes he doesn't arrive in the middle of this. Louis will lose the plot if he does.

“Just watching ya,” Niall says. He ashes onto the balcony table. Louis is staring at him.

“We were being careful,” Louis says, sounding unsure of himself.

“I'm sure you were,” Niall says. “Look, it's things only I would've noticed. No worries.” He bumps shoulders with him.

Louis seems to relax at that. He looks out at the view as well.

“How'd this happen?” Niall asks.

Louis lets out a long-suffering sigh. “To tell you the truth, I don't really know,” he says. “Just... being lonely together. Being scared together. Sometimes, how we are with each other, it’s hard to see where the line gets crossed.”

Niall doesn't understand.

“Well. Hope you know what you're doing,” he says.

“Niall,” Louis says, and wraps an arm around his shoulder. He reeks of sex. Niall flicks his cigarette away.

“I know you don't like feeling like you're out of the loop,” Louis continues. “But you're not. I promise you that.”

Niall is a little annoyed. He doesn't want the older sibling routine. “You could have warned me,” he says.

“It's one of those things that gets out of hand before you know it. And once we were in it I couldn’t - I didn’t - ” Louis gestures helplessly. “What would I say? You know?”

“Right,” Niall says. “Well.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Louis pulls away from him slightly and studies him. “Neel,” he says fondly. “No one else on earth knows.”

Niall bites his lip and rocks back and forth on his heels. “No one?”

“Not a soul. Just you.”

“Gonna be tough for me to keep this a secret.”

“Good thing we're going on break then,” Louis says. Niall doesn't laugh.

Louis takes a seat at the table. He rests his chin on a fist. “What will it take to cheer you up, lad?”

“A pony,” Niall says.

“How about a pint instead?”

Niall does laugh, then.

 

/

 

Dinner is awkward at first.

Harry can clearly tell something has happened, but being Harry, he doesn’t even probe for an answer, much less outright ask.

It’s a dinner they’ve wanted to have for a while, to plan out their lads holiday. They couldn’t figure out where they could go in London, all four of them, and have a private meal, until they decided to rent out the entirety of a bar/fish n’ chips restaurant for an evening. Not wanting to be alone, they invited an arseload of crew, management and their London friends. Nick Grimshaw couldn’t make it, but several of his friends did; they keep catching Harry’s eye and waving.

The four of them settle into a booth. Louis chatters away, talking with his hands, full of nervous energy. He’s the one putting out all of the ideas, while Liam picks painstakingly at his food, wearing a worried brow.

“I like,” Harry finally interrupts, speaking slowly, “the idea Niall had… that we spend a little anonymous time, maybe in Ireland -”

“Now you’re talking,” Niall says, sipping his beer.

“- then, you know… somewhere tropical.”

“I’m on board,” Liam says. He’s still glum; still picking at his chips.

Louis nods. He looks exhausted. The two of them keep sharing uneasy, guilty glances that Niall assumes he's not supposed to see.

“Maldives,” Louis throws out.

Harry nods. “Something like that. I'll discuss it with… who’s on that kind of logistics now?”

“Todd,” Liam supplies. He's peeling the label off of his beer, now.

“Todd,” Harry repeats, committing it to memory.

“Harold,” Louis says, getting up. He's on the outside of the circular booth, next to Niall. “Fancy a game of darts?”

Harry looks perplexed. “I'm rubbish at darts,” he says.

“Well, I've drank more than you, so let's call it fair,” Louis says. He has drank more than Harry,  more than any of them, in fact. His seat at the table is littered with dead-soldiers and he sways a little as he grips the side of the table, looking to Harry.

“Alright,” Harry acquiesces. He seems to sense Louis's desperation to leave Liam and Niall alone together.

They head off together to the other end of the room. Niall can still see them from where he's seated. He watches as Louis cajoles one of their bodymen to keep score.

Niall looks to Liam, who is still peeling the label, painstaking to avoid leaving any residue on the bottle.

“I thought we should talk as well,” Liam says. He sounds apologetic. They didn't get to talk at the house. Niall left Louis so he could have his shower and get ready, and Liam stayed hidden in the bedroom until the car came around. Niall knew he was in there beating himself up over what happened, but felt too awkward to go and find him.

“Probably should,” Niall agrees, sipping the dregs of his own beer.

“I'm... about as embarrassed as I've ever been,” Liam mutters.

Niall flaps his hand dismissively. “Come on,” he says. “You've seen me worse. I've _done_ worse.”

“Yeah, but… This, it’s different.”

“What's different about it?” Niall says quietly, watching Harry take aim at the dartboard. He flubs his shot. Louis cackles. Harry takes his hat off in dismay and runs his hand through his hair.

“It's…” Liam hesitates and Niall hears the beer label crumple. He turns and sees a very grim look on Liam's face.

“I don't want to scare you,” Liam says, finally. “Don't want you to think we're - I don't know. Odd.”

“It’s odd, yeah,” Niall says. “But you're my boys, me brothers. I spose -”

He stops and drums his hands on the table.

“I spose… that's what's bothering me,” he says, finally. “That you're all me brothers. But you and Louis - it's different, now. How you feel about each other.”

“I still think of him as like a brother,” Liam says, his voice barely audible.

“Alright, well,” Niall says. “That's a bit fucked, lad.” He makes sure to say it gentle enough that Liam starts laughing. “Do you really?”

“You know what I mean,” Liam says, and he runs his hand through his hair and then shades his forehead with it like it's too bright in the bar, or like he doesn't want to make eye contact. “We don't act too different with each other, really. We still pal around and, I don't know, give each other wet willies and the like.”

“That makes more sense.” Niall looks over at Louis, who's lining up a shot while Harry observes, arms folded.

“I guess I just -” he trails off again. “I just - how d’you come to think of him that way? How does it happen?”

“Ummmm,” Liam says. He suddenly looks quite stressed. Niall hands him Harry’s abandoned cocktail and he takes a long swig.

“I guess after Zayn,” Liam says. “We just filled that void in each other's lives, on tour. And both of us lost, you know, long term girlfriends and I think we sort of… It just happened that I woke up one day and I realized I'd been acting a bit like Louis's girlfriend for a while - with the type of support that he needed, you know. And I found I didn't like it when he pulled. I didn't care about the sex, of course, but I was afraid of losing that connection to somebody he might meet, and I figured out I didn't want to pull, myself -"

He draws in a deep breath. "I mean, I still wanted to sleep with girls, but I didn't need that sort of - well, what Sophia gave me, on the emotional end, because Louis got me that way. And we were cuddling more and more often and just spending time in each other's hotel rooms more than we ever - I mean, you know, Louis, for a while after Zayn he liked his space. And then I found myself coming round at the hours Zayn would have come around, because Louis would text me to. And one night -”

Liam looks at Niall with a startled expression, like he's amazed to find himself telling this story. Niall nods to nudge him forward. “And one night,” he says.

“Well,” Liam says, with a face like he's about to get in a car crash and can't do much about it. “We were at an afterparty and we were alone on a couch somewhere. I don't know how it happened. I was drunk and I hadn't been in a while, since I, you know, tried to turn things around a little. So I was, uh, not thinking right. And Louis was high on something. Somebody had him lick a bag. I guess it was molly? So not, like, a full high, but he was very touchy and warm and, you know.”

Niall glances at Louis and Harry, who are now just standing around talking. Louis catches Niall’s eye and makes the “wrap it up” gesture.

“Leeyum, bit faster now,” Niall whispers.

“Alright, alright,” Liam says, and seems scattered. “It's just your flight’s early and I wanted to get this out -”

“It's all good, lad, just speed it up, you're telling a Harry story right now.”

Liam laughs heartily. “Okay, well, so he was high, and he was clinging onto me which at that point… it had become a bit normal for us, I suppose. Even off-stage. And he got in my lap, and started -- I dunno, playing with my hair. And I think it was obvious what was about to happen, like, we both knew, and we started, um... we started snogging.”

Liam stops dead at that, his cheeks flushing.

“And that was okay?” Niall asks. He's begun to peel his own beer label.

“It was - I… Quite honestly, I had wanted it to happen really badly. But I was scared. I put us both to bed then and I figured we could talk when we were sober and agree it was an accident. But we woke up the next day, you know, in this strange bed, and he was wrapped around me and he smiled at me and it felt like - just, absolutely normal, somehow. And we kissed again. I thought maybe he wouldn't have remembered, but he did. I expect he pretended to be higher than he was,” Liam says, with fond annoyance.

Niall looks down at his own hands. He clears his throat. “And you just…”

Liam shrugs helplessly. “And we just.”

They both look toward Louis and Harry. Louis has abandoned darts to go on a campaign of bothering all his friends at the bar. Harry is chatting with a radio producer. He seems to implicitly sense the wide berth Niall and Liam currently require.

For a moment Niall feels extremely glad that Harry is Harry. He turns back to Liam.

“How is this going to play out?” Niall says. He feels much older, having heard all this. He hasn't felt this old since Zayn left. Liam and Louis have been the leaders of the band for years, but for now they're just another pair of sheepish lovers.

It's Liam's turn to look at his hands. “No idea, mate,” he says. “I feel foolish, but that's life, isn't it? These things just happen sometimes.”

Niall nods. “I'm not judging,” he says. “It makes sense, in a bit of a crazy way, mind. It seemed like - well, I sorta suspected before that something might be happening, so...”

Liam looks immensely conflicted at this. He seems both relieved and mortified.

Niall hesitates. “Do you love him?” he finally says.

Liam looks confused. “What do you mean? I love all of you.”

“You know what I mean,” Niall says, in a careful tone of voice he rarely uses.

“Oh,” Liam says. He flushes again and sighs.

Niall waits.

“I don't know,” Liam says. “Suppose I must, right? He just feels like home. Every part of him... feels like coming home.”

 

/

 

Niall’s car leaves for the airport at three, and they wait up with him, hanging around Louis' living room. They don't discuss the events of the day. Louis feels like all necessary ground has been covered for now. Later questions and concerns can be addressed as they crop up.

For now, they're comfortable sitting in silence, watching 30 For 30 reruns.

Louis sits apart from Liam, on the other side of Niall. If they were alone, he would have his head in Liam's lap or against his shoulder.

Louis feels the tension radiating off of Niall, knows him well enough to sense his secret prayers that they won't be demonstrative in front of him right now - that they will give him enough time to work through this on his own as he spends the next few weeks slogging through the hills of Mullingar, drunk and singing, where he belongs.

When he leaves he hugs both of them extra long and extra tight. They all feel the hiatus like an anvil over their heads.

“Have fun for me, lad,” Louis whispers. Niall squeezes him.

“Always,” he says cheerfully, with a smile like the rising sun. Louis is overwhelmed with affection for him.

And then he's gone. Liam and Louis go upstairs. Louis lies in Liam's quite massive bed, waiting and listening as he brushes his teeth.

“That could have been worse,” Liam calls from the bathroom.

“It could have,” Louis agrees.

“Imagine if it had been Harry.” Liam laughs, without much humor.

“Don't even tempt fate like that, my boy.”

Louis stretches out on the sheets. He's naked, and wants to finish what was interrupted earlier.

Liam walks out, drying his hands on his trousers. “Oh, hello,” he says, smiling.

Louis sits up a bit. “Come here,” he says. Liam obliges, climbing onto the bed between Louis's legs and grabbing his thighs with firm hands.

“We never got you off, Payno,” he says, stroking Liam's hair.

Liam nods. “I had noticed that, actually,” he says, with the somber tone of a newscaster.

Louis laughs. “For the sake of fairness - let's get you in me, then?”

Liam freezes. “Really?” he says, sounding so eager that Louis's cock twitches.

“Yeah,” Louis says, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat. “I'd like to try that again, a bit more sober now if you like.”

They've only done the arse thing a few times now; they both like a finger during a blow job, and Liam has put his cock in Louis before, most notably when they were both sloshed and could barely keep him in. Liam ended up coming half on the bed, half on Louis's stomach, and they laughed their heads off about it.

Liam gets up to grab lube. He picks up a condom as well. Louis takes it out of his hand and tosses it aside.

“Louis,” Liam says nervously.

“It doesn't feel as good, it'll be harder to get in, and we're not sleeping with anyone else, are we?”

Liam looks at him with dark eyes. “No,” he says, finally. “We aren't.”

“Right,” Louis says. He doesn't want this to become some big mental deal for Liam, who has become decidedly more ruminating and sensitive since they got together - things Louis does love about Liam, as it balances his own personality out, but sometimes he really needs to just be taken out of his own head.

So he pulls Liam in for a kiss and spreads his legs more open for him. Liam cradles his face for a while before he reaches one hand down to start spreading Louis open with slick fingers. Louis, mostly sober now, gasps at the feeling.

“Liam,” he says, overwhelmed. He wraps his arms around Liam's broad back and Liam pauses, stroking his cheek.

“All right?” he says softly. Louis nods.

“It's good,” he assures Liam. He reaches down and takes his wrist, guiding him further in.

“Ohh,” Liam says. “God. I want to feel you.”

Louis takes Liam's face in his hands. He moves his body on Liam's fingers, seeking the radiating pleasant sensation he feels when they're in the right spot.

“Feel me,” Louis says. He likes how when he's aroused like this, his reedy voice gets deeper. “Get in me, come on, lad.”

Liam groans with pleasure. He grabs a handful of Louis's arse and squeezes. “You’re ready?”

“Absolutely,” Louis says breathily. “I want to be full of you.” He slides his hands over Liam's back and up the back of his neck, ruffling his hair. He feels himself stretch as Liam slides into him and he fists his hands in the sheets, gasping and biting his lip.

“I'm in, I'm in,” Liam murmurs to him, and they kiss again. Louis sucks on his lower lip and Liam grips his waist with his now-sticky hand.

Liam starts to thrust into him and Louis tips his head back, moaning with pleasure. He's still burning a little, but it feels undeniably good to have Liam’s thick cock rubbing back and forth against that spot inside of him. His own cock is hard and Liam plays with it with his other hand before reaching up to grab a fistful of Louis's hair.

Louis sucks in a breath and grips Liam's arse, pulling him deeper into himself.

“Ohhh, hold on Tommo,” Liam says, his voice strained. “Don't want to come quite yet.”

“You should come,” Louis says, teasing him. He rocks himself on Liam's cock. “Come in me, come in my arse...”

Liam only lasts for about thirty seconds after that, staring doggedly into space the whole time as if looking at Louis’s face will do him in instantly. When he does come, he lets out a massive contented sigh and lays his body over Louis’, sliding his arms underneath him so they're wrapped up together. He kisses Louis’ cheek.

“So good, Liam,” Louis praises him. He's near to coming, himself, and he rubs his cock against Liam's stomach, letting friction do all the work for them. When he comes all over Liam and himself, neither of them move. Louis gives a shaky sigh and nuzzles in the crook of Liam's shoulder.

Liam pets him idly, rolling over slightly to look at him, stroking his hair and face.

Louis closes his eyes. He tries not to think of anything beyond this moment.

“D’you realize,” Liam says, “we just had some very nice and domestic missionary?”

“Don't say that,” Louis says. “I refuse, I'm only twenty-four. I'll eat your arse like a porn star tomorrow night.”

“Well, if you insist, king lad,” Liam says, stroking his chest.

Louis laughs.

/

They'll be fine, Niall realizes as he sits in Heathrow, paging through _Golf Digest._

He can't say how he knows this or why he's so sure of it, but just like he sensed there was something going on, he senses everything will be okay. In due time, anyway. 

Niall laughs to himself. His bodyman Stefan turns. "What's up?"

"Nothing," he says. He shakes his head. "Just weird, innit? Being an adult."

"Oh yeah," Stefan responds. "Always."


End file.
